That was enough. “Okay, I think you ladies had better—”
“Get the fuck out,” Nixon barked as he stormed into the kitchen. “Now.”
Relief swept through every cell in my body as I ushered the girls back into their clothing and out the door. What the hell would I have done if he’d reached for the bottle? Smacked it out of his hands? Wrestled him to the ground? The truth was, if he wanted to drink, there was little I could do to stop him. He could have slipped away to a bar—instead of the driving range—at any point this week, but he hadn’t.
I put the girls in the elevator, then closed the door behind me after I came back inside the penthouse. A warm, tight feeling filled my chest, and I put my hand over my heart. I was proud of Nixon.
“Fuck this,” he spat, ripping his hands over his hair. “And could you put on some clothes?”
So much for that warm, fuzzy feeling.
What the hell? I was wearing more clothing than those two had been. “Can you keep your dick in your pants long enough for me to get dressed, or should I expect Girls Gone Wild, Volume Two when I get back out here?”
“You jealous or something?” He strode past me and took one of his bajillion guitars from a stand near the coffee table.
“Hardly.” Would I have wanted to know what it was like to sleep with him? Maybe. Okay, definitely. But wanting to know and actually sleeping with the man were two different things. I valued my career and my body more than that.
“Nice fucking robe.” He stalked off, heading toward his in-home studio.
“It’s Casual Friday, remember?” I called after him.
He spent the rest of the afternoon in his studio, and I caught up on work at the dining room table. Dinner was silent and tense, and I’d never been happier to hear him say he was headed to bed early, because that meant I could too.
Except, I didn’t sleep. My mind wouldn’t quiet. It was too busy thinking of every scenario Nixon could get himself into, and how I could possibly keep him from risking his sobriety.
At two a.m., my phone lit up with yet another email, and I cursed. I really needed to turn the notifications off on that thing. The world wasn’t going to burn down while I caught a few hours of sleep, but I wasn’t about to let some other assistant at Berkshire get the jump on me either. Besides, I was up anyway, so I headed toward the kitchen, reading through yet another endorsement offer for the band.
Not that I should have bothered. The band didn’t do brand placement. Ben only forwarded these to me so I could craft a thoughtful rejection, which he would then send.
My phone in my face, I opened the cabinet closest to the refrigerator and pulled down a box of tea, then turned and put it on the island…and screamed at the figure sitting across from me at the kitchen’s bar.
3
NIXON
“What the hell are you doing?” Zoe shrieked from across the kitchen island.
“Sitting in my kitchen. What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” I fired back, her scream still ringing in my ears. Damn, the woman had some lungs.
“Who sits in their kitchen, in the dark, at two o’clock in the morning?” She slammed her phone down on the counter. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“Am I supposed to apologize?” I gripped my glass of water between my hands, wishing it was something stronger, like that bottle of Crystal Head those girls had taken with them.
“Yes! No. I’m honestly not sure.” She flicked on the light, and I blinked rapidly at the assault on my eyes. At least she’d gone with the softer, under cabinet ones instead of the overhead. “You have every right to sit wherever you want in your home at whatever time you want to do it. I just wasn’t expecting you…here…at two in the morning.”
Any retort I would have fired back died on my tongue. Her plaid shorts barely reached her mid-thigh, exposing her shapely, toned legs, and her pink ribbed tank top didn’t leave much to the imagination.
Had she always had such incredible breasts? Where the hell had she kept them hidden for the last four years? They were high and firm, the curves straining the material between the peaks.
“Were you having trouble sleeping?” she asked, turning away to fill the teakettle.
My grip tightened on the glass. Stop looking at her ass. She’s off-limits. Everyone is off-limits.
“Nixon?”
“Uh. Yeah.” I wouldn’t have called it trouble. It was far past that.
“Is that normal?” She finished filling the kettle, then put it on the stove.
“For me, it is.” Sleep was something that didn’t happen for me anymore, and without the alcohol as an aide, I spent a shit ton of nights right where I was now, running from my own memories. But on nights like tonight, when I hit decline on her call, it was worse. Fourth time this week.
She’d already threatened to show up here, at which point I’d stopped listening to that voicemail…all voicemails.
“Want to talk about it?” She leaned back against the counter and faced me.
“No.” I wanted to drink about it, but that wasn’t going to happen. Another face danced across my mind—big blue eyes, curly blond hair, and a smile that had gotten her anything she’d ever wanted from me. Anything except the one thing she’d actually needed. I closed my eyes like it would dull the pain, but it never did.
I didn’t deserve relief anyway.
“Okay. Well, how about some tea?” she offered.
“Tea?” What was I? An eighty-year-old woman?
“My dad used to make me tea when I was little and couldn’t sleep.” She picked up the box she’d dropped on the counter. “Chamomile, valerian root, and lavender. It’s always worked for me.” She tilted her head and looked off in the distance, a wistful smile transforming her face in a way that made my chest tighten. “Or maybe it was just knowing that he was there that relaxed me.” She shrugged, then tucked a piece of hair behind her ear nervously when she caught me watching her. “I guess it’s kind of my comfort food…except it’s comfort tea. Anyway, do you have anything like that? A comfort food? I can make it for you.”
There was something about seeing her all sleep-rumpled and soft that made me answer honestly.
“A few shots of vodka usually does the trick.” I rolled the glass of water between my hands.
“Oh.” Her eyes flared momentarily with surprise, then softened in understanding. “Okay, well, when you were a kid, what worked? Warm milk? A bedtime story?”
“As a kid, no one gave a shit if I was sleeping as long as I was quiet.” I snapped my jaw shut. Why the hell had I said that?
“Oh.”
I guessed that was her word of choice this evening…morning, whatever it was.
“Not everyone grows up with a picket fence and a dad who makes tea.” Shit, I really needed to shut up.
Her lips parted, but before she could respond, the kettle whistled. She took it off the burner, then filled two mugs with steaming water, followed by a tea bag each. Then she carefully carried them to the island.
“I like mine with honey,” she said. “Would you like to try it?” She looked at me without pity or judgment for the way I’d snapped at her. She seemed…patient.
“Sure. I mean, yes. Please. That would be great. It’s in—”
She was already opening the correct cabinet. Not that I should have been surprised. The woman knew more about my life than I did most of the time, but I knew almost nothing about her personal life.
“Tell me about it…what it’s like to grow up with a dad who makes tea.” If nothing else, maybe she’d bore me into a state of sleep.
“It was…normal, I guess. But everyone thinks their childhood is normal when they’re in it, right?” She took the tea bags out of the mugs.
“I guess.” I hadn’t. I’d known by the time I was seven that something was very fucked up in my corner of the world. “What are your parents like?”
She smiled as she stirred honey into both cups. “My parents are both teachers. Dad handles h
igh school English and Mom tackles kindergarten. Everyone in our little town jokes that the kids start with Mom and end with Dad.” She pushed my cup toward me, and I took it, exchanging it for the tepid water. “My older brother is a hell-raiser.” She laughed softly, shaking her head.
“What?” The cup warmed my hands, and I gave it a second to cool off.
“I was just thinking that label’s relative. Jeremiah has nothing on you. I bet you’d blow my little town apart at the seams.” She grinned, then took a sip of her tea.
“And that would be a good thing?” I leaned forward.
“Since this is purely theoretical, it would be a fun thing to watch.” She shrugged. “Small towns are a whole different world. You grew up in Tacoma, right?”
I drank my tea, ignoring her question. It wasn’t half bad. “Tell me more about this whole different world.”
She relaxed with each story she told, and in the half hour it took to drink that tea, Zoe Shannon transformed from an uptight, scheduled pain-in-the-ass, to a funny, intriguing woman I might have genuinely liked in another life.
A life where I wasn’t a self-medicating asshole incapable of conquering my own selfishness. But I was said asshole, and guys like me didn’t go for girls like her because those girls knew we weren’t nearly good enough to bring home to dads who made tea.
And for a small sip of a second, I kind of wished I was the guy who was.
My legs screamed as Buckcherry pounded through my headphones.
I pushed my body past the point of exhaustion as my feet hammered out a steady rhythm on the treadmill.
One good thing rehab had given me—besides a shot at sobriety—was a chance to get back into running again. My mind emptied when I ran, as if my feet literally carried me away from the shit that swirled inside my head. There was no past. No mistakes to atone for. No commitments I couldn’t handle. No album I couldn’t manage to write. There was no future beyond the next hundred yards, and my only competition was myself.
At mile number five, my body gave out.
I killed the treadmill, then stretched as I looked out over the bustling streets below congested with early-morning commuters. There was so much life out there. So many opportunities and ways to dull the ceaseless roaring in my head waited right outside my door.
Which was exactly why I was too chickenshit to leave my fucking building unless I was headed to work out.
“With the degree of struggle you’re feeling, I really would recommend coming back to live at one of our sober living houses for a month or so. You never dealt with the root of this problem, and until you do, you can’t really heal.” That’s what my therapist had said yesterday afternoon before I promptly switched off speakerphone when I’d walked into the living room and found Zoe reading. Pacing during my therapy calls was going to get me into trouble, but at least Shannon was under an NDA.
What the fuck was I supposed to do? Crawl into one of those sober houses and hide? Cancel the tour dates? Fuck up Jonas and Quinn’s lives more than I already had simply because I couldn’t get my shit together?
I couldn’t sleep, but I’d made my peace with that years ago—couldn’t silence his voice in my head and couldn’t black out to keep from hearing hers. But I also couldn’t stay up here forever. Eventually, I was going to have to handle civilization.
Fuck, I wanted a drink. I wanted ten. I wanted to walk out of this building and straight into the bar across the street. It wasn’t just the taste—oh no. I craved the oblivion. It was September already. I just needed another month, and it would all ease up. Just another month.
October was always easier.
But we had a show in two and a half weeks, and if I wasn’t strong enough to leave this damned building, how was I going to make it through an entire show without giving in to the buffet of shit readily available at a festival?
A quick glance at my cell phone would tell me that everyone had the answer.
Quinn’s text told me to come to Montana.
Jonas told me to come to Boston.
My producer told me to get my ass in the studio and write.
The only person not currently bossing my ass around like a child was the one woman I expected it from. Zoe might lecture me about my general assholery, but she let me take the lead when it came to what I needed.
I killed the Bluetooth and took out my earbuds when the song changed and “Sorry” filled the room through my phone’s speaker.
“Hey, you done?” Zoe asked from the doorway of my home gym.
Speak of the devil.
“No, I’m still running.” Sarcasm dripped from my voice as I turned to face her. “Obviously.” Damn, she was fun to rile up. I hit pause on my phone, killing the music.
“I like that song.”
“Most girls do. Pretty sappy, if you ask me.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a love letter. It’s supposed to be sappy.”
“It’s a ridiculously public apology for how shitty it is to maintain a relationship in the music industry.”
“Well, there’s nothing more romantic than pouring your heart out in public, and if you don’t get that, I can’t help you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, and her eyes followed, raking down my naked torso. Her lips parted as her attention lingered on the ink stretching across my lower abs that read Apathy is Death. I personally liked the wings on my chest, but hey, if that was the one that did it for her, that was fine by me, because holy shit, she was looking. And not just looking in the clinical sense she usually did either.
There was heat in those green eyes.
My dick stirred. If she kept looking, it was going to get really fucking awkward around here. “I can get you a poster, if you want.”
She startled, and her cheeks flushed a sexy shade of pink as she shook her head. “Sorry!” She squeezed her eyes shut.
Sexy shade of pink? Shit, I was seriously going to have to get some. I didn’t care about the “don’t replace one addiction with another” bullshit. Not when I was looking at Zoe-freaking-Shannon like she could be lunch.
“You look good,” she blurted with a forced smile. “I mean, you put on, what…ten pounds in rehab?”
“Fifteen in the past two months.” Turned out my body was down with the whole less-drugs-and-alcohol and more-food-and-exercise thing. I hadn’t realized just how emaciated I’d become until I’d stepped on a scale. Weightlifting helped too.
“You look healthy,” she gushed. “That’s all I meant.” She rocked back on her heels and clasped her hands in front of her navy-blue dress. “Healthy boy. Healthy, healthy, healthy.”
I pressed my lips in a line to keep from laughing at how flustered she was. “Right, and now that we’ve settled that, what did you need?”
“Oh. Harvey called. He said you haven’t returned his last two calls.” She arched an eyebrow.
Uptight Zoe has returned.
“Funny, I don’t have any voicemails from him.” I shrugged.
“Because your voicemail is full.” She crossed her arms. Too bad that dress’s neckline wasn’t just an inch lower. I would have killed to see just a little cleavage.
“Huh.” Hell yes, it was full. If I wanted to talk to someone, I picked up.
“And he mentioned something about three or four texts?” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.
“I’ll be sure to look.” I wouldn’t.
“You’re such a liar.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Just tell me what you want me to say to him. How many songs have you started? How long do you think you’ll need for three?”
“Zero, and I don’t know.”
“You’re killing me, Nixon.”
“There’s nothing inside my head you’d want on the page. Not right now.” Music had always been my outlet, my escape. It was where I channeled the emotions too messy to voice and too crippling to willingly recognize. But everything in my soul was too much right now, and I was too tight to let it free. It was like trying to force
the Mississippi River through a keyhole, and I didn’t have alcohol to ease the way.
She studied me carefully, and whatever she saw was enough to drain some of her tension. “Have you considered that writing about what you’re going through might help? I heard what your therapist said—”
“Have you considered that I might not want the world to sing along to what I’m going through?” I challenged as the sweat chilled on my skin. “That maybe there are pieces of my pain you can’t profit off?”
“Me?” She drew back like I’d hit her. “I would never—”
“Sure you would,” I snapped. “You all do. You, Ben, Harvey, Ethan…everyone in this industry makes money when Jonas falls in love and Quinn goes back to the guy she left behind. Usually I’m cool with it. I’ve made a lot of damn money ripping my heart open and bleeding out for the audience. But this part of me isn’t for sale.” I marched toward her, but she didn’t budge from the doorway. “Get out of my way.”
“No.” She raised her chin and stared me down.
“I’m sorry?” I had more than a foot on her, and she still looked undaunted.
“I said, no. I’m not moving. We’re having a discussion.” She shifted her weight, popping her hip like she was digging in for the fight. “You run away from everyone but me, Nixon Winters.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” I snapped.
“Right now? I’d settle for you understanding one fact.”
“And that would be?” I glared down at her.
“I don’t give a shit if you give Harvey the song. If you need to write something to work through everything that’s eating you from the inside, then go lock yourself in the studio, write it, then burn it for all I care.” She looked up at me unflinchingly, with nothing but honesty radiating from her eyes.
“You’re serious,” I said softly.
“As a heart attack. I chose this business for the same reason you did—because I love music. I love the way it can change my emotions, and the way it can give voice to things I can’t seem to say. I love when a song becomes the soundtrack to a moment in my life, and then hearing it takes me right back. I love the feeling that courses through my body when you’re on stage, playing a solo that speaks through the music instead of the words. It skips right over my brain with a direct hit to my heart.” She tapped right above her neckline.
Muses and Melodies (Hush Note Book 3) Page 4
